Tuesday, April 12, 2011

So it's been a month since my last post. Where have I been? Living mainly, revisiting some old demons that seem to keep popping their little heads up. That can be very demoralizing having those old familiar visitors pop up again and again. The feeling of "Omg, I thought I dealt with this" is all too common. Again? I have to do this again? Insert angry grumble here. You know what I am talking about. For me its depression, but it can be any number of things; anger, overeating, drinking too much, overdrawing the bank account, anxiety, you name it. It's that "worst" part of you, the part that you think "If I could just be rid of that, everything would be perfect. This is what holds me back." It's a theme for your life.

So what do you do about it? How do you make it go away?

Great questions, let me know when you figure it out.

Coming out of the shadow of my last bout, I really can't say. I have had so many points in my life where I thought "This is it, I reached the new level of understanding of myself, and I am going to be great now." I think its funny at this point really.

You may be asking yourself, "But aren't you an initiate? Aren't you supposed to beyond things like depression and other mundane things like that?"

And I would say "You haven't met many Feri initiates have you?"

But seriously, it's normal for a person to stumble, to trip, to lick your wounds. If you have a complex, or demon, or theme of your life that just keeps coming back, well...that's okay. We are all human, no matter how powerful of witches we are. We all have our shadows. It took me a long time to learn that, and I still find myself raging against my shadow from time to time. But there are other times when I am at peace with it; times where I can even have compassion for it, compassion for myself. And that's the key right there, don't use your shadow as another vehicle to throw your power away. "Well, I fell off the wagon, so that just validates what a piece of shit I am." It happens, show yourself some love, and stand back up to start again.

And what about when you are right in the middle of your shadow's influence? What if it is just too strong? You can't pull yourself out?

That's okay too!

Part of knowing yourself and claiming your power is knowing and claiming the support you have from those around you. Your power extends to the connections you have made. So you needed your best friend to smack you upside the head, or you needed your spouse to remind you of your tools, or you needed your covenmate to come to your house and MAKE you do ritual. Accepting help when you need it is NOT a sign of weakness.